Ethanol yield, derived from sugar cane yield in Brazil, is directly proportional to the soil quality. In Brazil most cane is grown in highly organic "terra roxa" or purple soil (because organic content is so high) in southeastern Brazil.
As in Florida, south of Lake Okeechobee, there is a lot of muck, organically rich, soil. Fertilizer always helps, but when you start with the right ingredients and weather, yields skyrocket and unit costs decline dramatically.
I would not make a bet on a significant decline in marginal cane productivity in Brazil just yet because where they are going, in the state of Mato Grosso, they have plenty of excellent conditions for growing sugar cane. Also, they use whatever is left of the molasses to spray fields as a form of fertilization since the byproduct is very high in organic content. Environmentalists in the USA would not permit it due to the high nitrogen content, but here we are talking about Brazil...
The impeding factor for growing cane in recently cleared land in the middle of the Amazon has not changed, and that is not the yield, but transportation costs. River barges are a huge plus, but railways are scarce and trucking it is uneconomical, dangerous, and at the end of the day, almost infeasible unless prices are high enough. |
